Transcript: Reducing Radiation Damage with Ginger & Lemon Balm

Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

The German Medical Association finally just apologized for the profession’s role in the Nazi atrocities—65 years after 20 physicians stood trial in Nuremberg. “During the trial, [the Nazi doctors]…argued that their experiments were not unlike previous studies by researchers in the United States,” like Dr. Strong’s injection of prisoners with the plague. Nazi doctors were hung; Dr. Strong went on to chair a department at Harvard. And, we were just getting started. The few examples the Nazis cited were nothing, compared to what the American medical establishment started doing after Nuremberg. After all, prisoners are “much cheaper than chimpanzees.”

Much attention has focused on our cold war radiation experiments, which remained classified for decades. Declassification, the American Energy Commission warned, “would have a very poor effect on the public,” because they describe “experiments performed on human subjects, including the actual injection of plutonium into the body.” Subjects, like Mr. Cade, a 53-year-old “colored male” who got in a car accident, and ended up in the hospital. Great! Let’s inject him with plutonium.

Who else is powerless, besides patients? How about kids—at the Fernald School for the mentally retarded in Waltham, Massachusetts—who were fed radioactive isotopes in their breakfast cereal? Trix are for kids. Despite the Pentagon’s insistence that these were the “only feasible means” of developing ways to protect people from radiation, researchers have since come up with a few ways that don’t violate the Nuremberg code—which states the only time doctors are allowed to do experiments that may kill or disable people is if they themselves are willing to sign up to be experimental subjects, as well.

One way is to study cells in a petri dish. The “[p]rotective effect of Zingerone…against radiation induced genetic damage” and cell death in human white blood cells. What is zingerone? It’s a phytonutrient found in cooked ginger root. You blast cells with some gamma rays, and you get less DNA damage, and fewer free radicals, when you add ginger phytonutrients. They even compared it to the leading drug injected into people for radiation sickness, and found the ginger compound to be 150 times more powerful, and without the serious side effects of the drug itself.

They conclude that it’s an inexpensive natural product that may protect against radiation-induced damage. In fact, lots of different plant products have been found to be protective in vitro against radiation damage by a whole variety of mechanisms. After all, “[p]lants have been utilized since time immemorial for curing diseases;” so, they started screening plants and also found radiation-protective benefits from other plants one can find at grocery stores: garlic, turmeric, goji berries, mint leaves—but, this is all just on cells in a test tube. None had actually been tested in actual people—until now.

How are you going to find people exposed to radiation you can test stuff on? Well, aside from pilots, another group that suffers inordinate radiation exposure is the hospital workers that run the X-ray machines, who have been found to suffer chromosomal damage as a result—compared to other hospital staff—and higher levels of oxidative stress within their body. Although X-rays can damage DNA directly, much of the damage is caused by the free radicals generated by the radiation.

So, they asked radiation staff to drink two cups a day of lemon balm tea for a month; an herbal tea known to have high levels of antioxidants, as I showed in one of my favorite videos, “Antioxidants in a Pinch.” So, what happened? The level of antioxidant enzymes in their bloodstream went up, and the level of free radical damage went down—leading to the conclusion that “oral administration of lemon balm tea may be helpful for the protection of the radiology staff against radiation-induced oxidative stress and improve[d] antioxidant defense system, especially enzymatic defense, due to its antioxidant properties.”

And, if that’s the reason, then practically any plant should fit the bill. So, know that as you’re sucking on some crystallized ginger to prevent travel sickness on some airplane, little did you know that you may be protecting yourself from the cosmic radiation at that altitude as well.

If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my videos for free by clicking here.

To post comments or questions into our discussion board, first log into Disqus with your NutritionFacts.org account or with one of the accepted social media logins. Click on Login to choose a login method. Click here for help.

Speaking of ginger, does anyone know if the pickled ginger that they serve with Sushi is actually good for you? Ever since I saw Dr. Greger’s video about Kimchi I have been skeptical of most fermented vegetables.

Darryl

The pickled ginger is not a fermented product, its pickled with added vinegar (itself interesting due to lowering postprandial blood glucose), much as American “bread & butter” pickled cucumbers are.

Kimchi, like miso and doenjang from soy, is fermented, resulting in increased nitrates and secondary amines. Its these components, and perhaps also the high salt that are believed responsible for higher gastric cancer in populations that consume a lot of kimchi and fermented soy products.

Thank you so much for that insightful answer! I’ve been wondering about this for almost a year and I couldn’t find anything credible with a simple google search.

Also I was under the impression that miso and fermented tofu were actually healthy for you. Is my understanding still correct? I think Dr. Greger did a video on miso on one of the earlier volumes that stated Miso is in fact beneficial for us. I could be wrong as I couldn’t relocate that video.

In another study correlating salt and nitrate consumption with stomach cancer mortality, the focus was squarely on the salt, as at lower salt intakes stomach cancer was lower with higher nitrate (also a marker of vegetable) intakes.

It may just be the high salt in miso that’s bad, so tempeh is off the hook. Red miso varieties developed in warmer southern Japan are preserved with salt than white miso from colder northern Japan, but they’re all pretty high (300-900mg/Tbsp).

Cory

Thanks again for all of your insight! It is greatly appreciated

ken

Does raw ginger give the same results?

Jon Lefave

“Fresh ginger does not contain zingerone but cooking the ginger transforms gingerol into zingerone through a retro aldol reaction.”

Stephen Lucker Kelly

Should people be recommended to drink high amounts of lemon balm before and after flying?

Jane

My husband will most likely be going through his third round of radiation treatments for his recurrent low grade lymphoma. Would consuming this tea/ginger lessen the effectiveness of the treatment at all, or could it help prevent future problems that the treatment itself may cause?

Darryl

Here’s a site that offers recommendations of foods that synergize with radiation treatment for breast cancer, others to be avoided that reduce treatment effectiveness, and a bland low-antioxidant diet for during radiotherapy:

“A local doctor said awareness is growing locally around orthorexia, an
obsession to consume only healthy foods that can leave sufferers far
from well.”

Plantstrongdoc M.D.

Talk about inventing a disease…..now it is a disease to eat a healthy diet….can you get a pill to cure this terrible condition !? Of course it is a threat to the diseasecare system if people start to eat healthy.

Vaughan

Just to ask, what were the other 6 spices/herbs analyzed in the antioxidant table? What was the number 1 with 721?

I have a question. I’ve been hearing a lot about lemon water (squeezing half a lemon in a glass of water) , that it has lots of beneficial effects, including weight loss, improved digestion, breath-freshening, boost immune system, cleanses your liver of toxins, give you an energy boost, keep skin clear, reduce inflammation. I’d be curious to hear what the science says about this, and just how much of this is actually true.

Meg

Also, I’ve been drinking this for a while, and I feel good, and it would make sense since it is a citrus fruit and should be healthy, and I do a plant-based diet anyways, but I’d still like to hear if there is more
science backing it up.

Daniel

Hello. Is crystallized ginger healthy or unhealthy? Does it have similar effects to non-crystallized ginger? Is the amount of sugar unhealthy?

Daniel

Oh, and what about the antioxidant content in non-crystallized ginger compared to crystallized ginger?

John Axsom

Maybe one should drink song of this ginger juice before going to the dentist for full mouth x-rays or even chest x-rays in a clinic.

Next Video

Previous Video

Based on studies of atomic bomb survivors, Chernobyl victims, and airline pilots exposed to more cosmic rays at high altitudes, it appears that fruits and vegetables may decrease radiation-induced chromosome damage.